Chronicle/Kendra Stanley-MillsLola Hornof, 34, of Newaygo County, talks about her brutal beating at the hands of her husband, Robert Hornof, 26, on Feb. 6. He later crashed his vehicle leaving a Holton-area gas station where the woman was rescued.

The house trailer at 79 W. Wildwood in Newaygo County's Garfield Township is vacant now. The windows boarded up or covered with blankets.

Lola says she was beaten and tortured by her husband Robbie Hornof for more than two hours before being forced into his car where the assault continued as he drove to Holton. Bloodied and bruised, Lola escaped from the car, running half-clothed with her hands bound behind her back, a cord around her neck, to a Holton gas station and store where she was helped by customers.

Robbie Hornof wrecked his car after speeding away from the gas station and is recovering from critical injuries at a care facility. He is expected to be arraigned on various assault charges soon.

And Lola Hornof says for the first time in years she feels free.

But why did she stay with a man who first hit her in 2003? Why didn’t she take the advice she received at Every Woman’s Place after finding refuge there following one of Robbie’s beatings? Why did she put herself and her children at risk for so long?

At first Lola says she kept hoping Robbie would change. Then she says she became too afraid to leave.

The honeymoon period

Lola, 34, says her life with Robbie, 26, was the polar opposite of the life she had before meeting him.

He was 17 and she was 25 when they met in a bar. Although Lola says Robbie initially lied about his age, she fell in love with him and he treated her and her young daughter well.

After becoming pregnant a week after they met, Robbie moved in with Lola who owned a home in Vermont and was working and attending college.

When they welcomed their first child together, a son, Lola says, “I was happy and he was ecstatic.”

“It was the honeymoon period and everything was very good. I paid all the bills and took care of everything, but he took care of (her daughter). He was really good with her and she really liked him,” Lola says. “We just connected.”

But the honeymoon was over about 1 1/2 years into their relationship, once the couple moved to Michigan to live near his family.

Leaving behind everyone she knew and loved in Vermont, Lola says it took years before she realized she was slowly losing grip on her identity.

“He was obsessed with me from the beginning,” she says.

But Bob Hornof, Robbie's father, says he disapproved of his son's marriage because of his young age. Hornof doesn't hide the fact he doesn't like Lola, saying she isn't always honest and that she changed his son for the worst.

He says Lola has taken sides with his late wife Bernice's family members in an ongoing dispute between him and them.

“There's bad blood between us,” he says. “There always has been.”

Bob Hornof says he'd had enough of Lola and Robbie constantly fighting and getting back together.

“The two of them together, I couldn't even have them in my house that long,” Hornof says. “This was a train wreck that was going to happen since the day they got together.”

The first attack

Chronicle/Heather PetersA blanket covered a window of the trailer where Lola Hornof lived in Newaygo County's Garfield Township and allegedly was beaten for more than 2 hours by her husband Robbie on Feb. 6.

The abuse and Robbie’s drug use began in 2003, Lola says, following the death of Robbie’s mother, Bernice. The couple was living and both working in Muskegon County, after marrying a year earlier.

They were also expecting another child, a girl.

But Lola says Robbie began doing “crack and speed to deal with his mom passing away” and the drugs fueled violent outbursts by him, which resulted in the first physical attack on Lola.

Many more followed and Lola made a number of attempts to leave him. But he threatened to kill those she loved if she left.

Early in the relationship, Lola and her children stayed twice at Every Woman’s Place in Muskegon and later moved into her own apartment off Apple Avenue, without Robbie.

But Robbie begged her to take him back. And she did.

Pregnant again that summer of 2004, Robbie was doing methamphetamine and crack, Lola says. That prompted new fits of rage that resulted in her being thrown down the apartment stairs, she says, causing her to give birth prematurely.

“At that point, I became afraid of him,” she says. “He was obsessed and I knew, short of buying a new identity, he would find me.

“At that point, I’m stuck. That’s when he started cutting me off from people I knew,” she says.

Robbie didn’t allow her to keep a job for long, she says, always showing up at her work, accusing her of sleeping with a co-worker.

They moved often after being evicted several times for failing to pay rent because the money Robbie was making working for his dad’s construction company was going to support his crack habit, she said.

Lola blossoms

Robbie had his share of run-ins with the law, including a well-publicized road rage incident, drunken driving and fleeing and eluding police and receiving and concealing stolen property.

Chronicle/Lynn MooreLola Hornof feeding her newborn baby days after she allegedly was beaten and tortured by her husband, Robbie Hornof.

While Robbie was incarcerated, Lola immersed herself in her kids and continued her higher education. And when he’d get out, she took the frequent bouts of violence against her in stride, believing they would eventually come to an end.

“He got off the crack and in my head I thought, ‘Maybe it’s just when he’s high. Most of (the abuse) happened when he was high. I was making excuses,” Lola says. “I thought, I just got to get through school.”

In December 2008, Robbie was sent to jail for 7 1/2 months for a probation violation — a period in Lola’s life mixed with highs and lows.

“He missed Christmas with the kids,” she says. “But I was happier when he was gone. My kids were happier when he was gone. It was a lot less stressful.”

“We saw a side of Lola that we hadn't gotten to see before,” Botbyl says. “She was happy, she smiled, she could joke. She actually got to the point where she could tell a joke."

Botbyl's daughter, Stephanie Miel, agrees.

“It was eye opening, to say the least, when I learned that Lola actually talked, that she smiled and laughed,” Miel says.

In August 2009, Robbie was released from jail. At that point, Botbyl says, Lola had changed.

“(Lola) was stronger and more vocal and able to say 'No, I don't like that' or 'No, I want to do this,'” Botbyl says.

Lola HornofLola Hornof, 34, of Newaygo County, talks about her brutal beating at the hands of her husband, Robert Hornof, 26, on February 6, 2011. He later crashed his vehicle leaving a Holton-area gas station where the woman was rescued.

The last move

The family packed up, yet again, and moved to Newaygo County when an old condemned house trailer was up for auction. Robbie thought the purchase was a good idea, Lola said, and she reluctantly went along.

“I hated the house. I didn’t want to move there,” Lola says. “I thought maybe he wanted to move there because it was more isolating and I was thinking there were no close neighbors. They were all, like, 80. I knew it wasn’t going to work.”

Robert quickly started lashing out at the children and child protective services workers confirmed allegations of physical abuse against the two oldest children.

State officials intervened and ordered Robbie to stay away from all of his children.

“(CPS) came to my house about three days before Christmas and told me, ‘If you have your kids around Robbie and something happens,’ it will fall on me and they will take my kids,” Lola says.

She told Robbie to leave the home, but he refused. So Lola and the kids left instead, moving in with Miel Dec. 22, 2009, and staying for six weeks. While they were there, she says he'd call 20 to 30 times a day, begging her to return.

On one occasion, Robbie drove to Miel’s house, threatened Lola, the kids and Miel’s family and said he’d kill them if Lola didn’t return, according to a police report.

Feeling the lives of those she loved were in danger, Lola took the kids back to their Newaygo home in February 2010.

“I knew if I brought the kids back to the house they’d be gone, CPS would take them. The situation I was in, there was no way to get out of the situation. I couldn’t leave him with the threats he was making,” Lola says.

December 2008 - Robbie is arrested for probation violation and sent to jail.

August 2009 - Robbie is released from jail. Relationship between Lola and Robbie begins to unravel.

Dec. 21 2009 - CPS substantiates abuse of oldest girl by Robbie for cutting her cheek and threatening to harm her if she revealed cause of injury to CPS. The next day, Lola and children leave Robbie and move in with his cousin.

Dec. 30, 2009 - A 26-year-old woman is brutally raped in Muskegon Heights. Robbie is primary and only suspect, but is never questioned by police. Case dropped after victim doesn't return calls from police.

January 2010 - Robbie hospitalized for hallucinations and suicidal thoughts.

February 2010 - Lola and the children return home. Shortly after, the children are removed from home because of Robbie's violence and are placed in foster care.

May 14, 2010 - Lola reports to White Cloud Police Department that Robbie struck her twice in the back and once in the head while she was sleeping. She spends night in women's shelter.

Jan. 10, 2011 - Baby girl born to Lola and Robbie. She is immediately placed in foster care.

Feb. 6, 2011 - Lola says Robbie brutally beat her inside their Newaygo County home and driven by Robbie to Holton Township where the assault continued. Robbie crashes car into a tree.

Her oldest daughter alerted CPS, and when they arrived at the home, Robbie was found hiding in a closet. The children were removed and placed in two different foster homes.

After the children were removed, Lola says Robbie started treating her like a prisoner. He would lock her in the trailer using a lock he installed on the outside of the front door when he left, she said. He left her there alone on Christmas Eve and Chrismas, she says.

“They locked themselves up in that trailer and wouldn't answer for nobody,” says Don Simington, a neighbor.

Simington says while Lola was living with Robbie's cousin, Robbie tried to fix up the trailer. He said the smell there was overpowering.

“He wanted me to fix the plumbing and electrical, but I couldn't stand to be in there,” Simington says. “And I grew up on a farm.”

Another neighbor, Jane Bode Fowler, says she rarely saw Lola at the trailer.

“When they were here the trailer was so closed up all the windows were covered up no one could tell what was going on in there.”

Robbie's friend, John Otis Tyler III, says Robbie tends to be a jealous man, and whenever he was around them, Lola didn't speak much.

Fremont psychologist Jim Van Treese says abusers will beat women down with constant berating to the point where the women are “sucked into learned helplessness.” And that's why it can be so hard for them to leave their abusers.

“They believe they can't affect their environment,” says Van Treese, who specializes in abuse and torture and is a professor at Ferris State University. “They feel a sense of profound hopelessness and inadequacy.”

Seeking custody

Lola became pregnant with their last child shortly in 2010 and on Jan. 12, that baby was placed into a foster home as well.

“It was the worst thing in the world,” Lola says, wiping away tears. “I handed the baby over to the foster parents. I cried. It broke my heart having to give them the baby.”

Lola says she had three days with the newborn, named her, bonded with her, fed her and stayed up as long as possible, so not to miss a thing.

“I didn’t sleep the whole time. I just wanted to hold her and take care of her,” she says.

Four weeks later, Robbie assaulted Lola at the Newaygo home and somehow she lived to tell about it.

“I feel like I’m the one who got away from Hannibal Lecter,” Lola says.

Now a month after the torture, Lola is recovering, with only one focus in mind: “My kids.”

“I’m going to go back to school, get a house and get my kids back. I need to get some normalcy back with my kids,” she says.

Bob Hornof says he doesn't believe Lola should regain custody of his grandchildren, saying they were not well cared for when they lived with her and Robbie.

“I could not say she was a good mom,” he said. “I'd be lying if I said it.”

But Botbyl says “Lola deserves the chance to prove she can be a good mom.”

"I think she is capable of great things once all of this is taken care of and she gets on her feet,” Botbyl says. “The kids are great. We have come to love them quite dearly.”

Permanently severing parental rights to children is similar to causing a death for them, Van Treese says.

Chronicle/Kendra Stanley-MillsLola Hornof, 34, of Newaygo County, talks about her brutal beating at the hands of her husband, Robert Hornof, 26, on Feb. 6. Weeks later, Lola's injuries are still visible.

“The relationship is dead,” he says.

Miel, Robbie's cousin, says she believes if Lola isn't given another chance to take care of her children, CPS would be “victimizing the victim.”

“Lola is a victim just like the kids,” Miel says. “The only thing she is guilty of is falling in love with an abuser, as many of us are. If the system, fails to give Lola a chance at being the mother she deserves to be the system will have again failed another victim of domestic violence.”

Moving on

Lola is in the process of filing for divorce, and has a personal protection order against Robbie.

She has only returned to the Newaygo home once, with a friend, to retrieve her things.

“I got nauseous. I thought I was going to throw up,” she says of seeing it for the first time since the assault.

Lola vows never return to that place, and until Robbie is incarcerated, she will continue to live in fear.

“I have nightmares,” she says. “In my head right now, he will keep coming back. Until he’s locked up somewhere, he will keep coming back.”